Katerynoslav physician Ivan Leshko-Popel: a lifetime of devotion

Memories about people who are often described as goodness fanatics should be maintained the way one keeps a candle burning, because the only reward for selfless, blessed work is being remembered. It is precisely when one encounters moments of fainthearted doubt in the possibility of goodness and justice in this world that people who “laid down their lives for their friends” are remembered.

Dr. Ivan Leshko-Popel, a physician from Katerynoslav, was this kind of extraordinary personality.

He was born in Rohachiv, a small town in Belarus, on Sept. 5, 1860. He obtained his secondary education at a gymnasium in Mohilau. Like a powerful magnet, his boundless kindness and extraordinarily friendly nature attracted his fellow students, who were eager to invite him for the holidays.

Owing to his modest financial means, he had to moonlight as a private tutor, but more often than not he gave free lessons to impoverished students whom other tutors had rejected. As the years passed, Popel became a skilful tutor in the gymnasium’s upper grades. After graduating in 1879, that same year he enrolled at St. Petersburg University’s Natural Sciences Department of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty. After graduating in 1883, he transferred to the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy as a third-year student.

When he was still at the university, Leshko-Popel continued tutoring, with approximately the same financial results: he spent much of his time on lessons and earned a pittance. “Big money is fraught with temptation,” he joked good-naturedly. “You start earning a lot and find that stupid ideas start creeping into your head. Earning little is good for the soul.”

After he transferred to the academy, he found he could not continue tutoring because his studies took up all his time. The subjects were wide-ranging and his professors were severe taskmasters. Students often disparaged their strictness, but Ivan had his own opinion: “If I were a professor, I would be tough with my students. Indeed, a physician is entrusted with human life, the most precious thing. Here any indulgence is out of the question. One must acquire the most accurate and complete knowledge.”

As a senior student at the military medical academy, he went home for the holidays, but did not engage in much rest and recreation. Instead, he would walk around the poor districts of the city, seeking out the sick and giving them treatment. He would even pay those who, out of ignorance, refused surgery that they badly needed.

In his fourth year he supported a nine- year-old orphan boy. He had been deeply affected by the suffering of the boy’s mother whom he had treated at the clinic. Before she died, he promised her that he would take care of her son.

Leshko-Popel graduated from the academy on Nov. 12, 1886, with a medical officer’s diploma. He treasured his status and commanded respect through his life’s work. On Nov. 30, 1886, he was appointed junior physician with the 54th Reserve Cadre Battalion, later redesignated as the 210th Perekop Reserve Battalion, and then as a regiment.

After a two-month vacation, which he spent in his home town, he reported for duty in Katerynoslav (today: Dnipropetrovsk). Dr. Leshko-Popel’s medical career, which began on Feb. 7, 1887, won him the love and respect of the men in his battalion and all the city residents.

After the formation of a municipal branch of the St. Petersburg Medical Mutual Aid Society, he was invariable elected one of three honorary justices. Election to this public post required a quorum of two-thirds of all general assembly members. As soon as night medical shifts were instituted in the city, Leshko-Popel declared that doing them was a question of moral duty to him. He always did night shifts with the utmost diligence — and without pay.

Leshko-Popel spent 17 years in Katerynoslav. He began seeing patients at 7 a.m., and long lines of poor people, mostly factory workers, waited outside his office. He thoroughly examined every patient, consoled each one, and wrote out prescriptions. He often gave his patients money to buy medicine. After office hours he made house visits. At first he simply walked to their homes. Later he used a bicycle. The day would pass quickly, and there would be many patients waiting in various parts of the city. He returned home late at night, utterly exhausted. He was frequently summoned during the night to suburban slums because local physicians were loath to answer such calls.

This kind-hearted and sensitive physician had an extensive practice, including well-off patients. He earned a lot and could have accumulated considerable capital if he had wanted. This never happened. His close friends joked that there were holes in his pockets. Everything that he received from the rich he gave to the poor.

One time he prescribed iron for a schoolgirl, who was suffering from anemia. She asked when she should take it and he said before lunch. He soon realized that she and her mother never had lunch and only drank unsweetened tea. How could he help her? Shortly afterward, the widow and her daughter started receiving meat from a local butcher, paid for by an unknown person. This lasted several months.

Every day he visited a woman in the last stage of tuberculosis. “There is nothing we can do to help her, but seeing a doctor gives her hope, so we won’t deprive her of it.”

On another occasion he prescribed a dry and warm flat for a rheumatic blacksmith’s large family, who lived in a cold and damp apartment, and paid their rent for half a year in advance.

While treating a gravely ill army officer, he learned that the man could not afford his children’s tuition. He promptly visited the head of the gymnasium’s board of trustees, an acquaintance of his, and obtained a scholarship for the children.

Another characteristic trait was the way he treated his orderly. Whenever he was called away during the night, he tried to do without the orderly’s help and protect the man’s well deserved rest.

Countless stories were told about this doctor with the big, loving heart. He helped people with firewood and coal for the winter, paid for their food, and gave them money to help them through difficult times. He never paid attention to the time or weather and never asked people’s names or took an interest in their financial status, place of residence, or religious beliefs. The main thing was that they needed help, and he helped each individual as best he could. Some people thought he was a crank, others said that he was eccentric. Many made fun of him, but the good doctor continued doing his job the way he thought was best.

Leshko-Popel was rewarded for his dedication. One of his patients, a single, middle-aged woman, asked if he could find her a neat and cozy house with a small garden, since he often traveled throughout the city visiting his patients. He found a suitable place and she bought it. She died shortly afterward, but not before she willed the house to him. The kind doctor was thus repaid a hundredfold for his good deeds, and he and his family had their own house.

But their happiness was short-lived. He caught an infection resulting from an operation, and a week later he died of blood poisoning at the age of 54. His funeral was attended by many residents of Katerynoslav, who gathered to bid farewell to their “friend,” as he was called by the city’s poor.

After Dr. Leshko-Popel’s death, attempts were made to perpetuate his memory. The city council resolved to establish a hospital in one of the city suburbs and name it after him, and the medical society founded a society that provided medical treatment to impoverished patients. That was before the First World War broke out in 1914. I wonder if anyone remembers him in Dnipropetrovsk today.

People like Dr. Leshko-Popel are as rare as hen’s teeth. Yet it is precisely these kinds of people who should be cherished by society, if it wants to avoid becoming totally immersed in the daily bustle of selfish transactions. The selfless life of such inconspicuous, hard-working idealists is history’s gain and they deserve to be remembered with gratitude.